Category Archives for Hotels.
Marriott has continued to promote its elite benefit guarantees despite suspending them during the pandemic. Fortunately the cash guarantee compensation is back for when hotels fail to deliver specific promised benefits.
Extended Stay America has had a customer-friendly policy dating back years of not charging for local calls. They’ve advertised this since when in-room phone revenue was a thing (before everyone had cell phones with unlimited domestic calling) and the chain stills promote ‘free local calls’ on their website.
Yet for several months they’ve been charging for local calls. The chain tells me that’s not a mistake.
Before the pandemic there was no greater loyalty program with a gap between what it promised and what it delivered than Marriott Bonvoy. On paper it took the best features of Starwood Preferred Guest with the scale of properties of Marriott and merged them together. And yet the program has simply failed to deliver elite benefits consistently at the property level.
The irony of course is that before acquiring Starwood, Marriott Rewards wasn’t very generous with elites but they were consistent. The Marriott brand across the board was consistency. Now they’re the Forrest Gump of loyalty: you never know what you’re going to get until check-in. This have only gotten worse.
Just because a room is available for sale doesn’t mean a member requesting a Suite Night Award will be upgraded to it if Marriott forecasts that the room will be sold.
A room can be available 24 hours prior to check-in, but Marriott’s systems will still hold back the inventory to possibly sell to someone rather than upgrade the member into that room.
The Ritz-Carlton Maldives presidential suite runs 4.3 million Marriott points per night, though standard villas are better value. Some hotels offer premium room redemptions for more points, but those are generally going to give you about half a cent per point.
Two hotel guests BASE jumped off the 25th floor rooftop bar at the Grand Hyatt Nashville on Friday evening as other patrons caught the scene on video.
The jumpers parachuted “across the road and landed in an adjacent parking lot.” They then got into a car that was parked in the lot and headed off. They’re now banned from the hotel, and remain at -large according to a police report.
The problem with living outside the law is you lose its protection. And the more people who are involved in your activities, the greater the risk of getting caught. Asking hotel employees to assist in crimes may seem logical, it is supposed to be a service industry after all. And what happens in Vegas doesn’t truly stay there – that level of discretion is a myth. At least unless you tip really well.
Hilton has announced its promotion for the first part of 2021. Registration required and you should register now just in case you have a Hilton stay between January 1 and May 2, 2021 because you won’t remember to do so later.
A correspondent shares his recent experience with an overwater bungalow at the Hilton Moorea. He found “the grounds are lovely, the staff was very nice, the breakfast excellent” (though service not proactive). However this was overshadowed by problems with his room and with the hotel’s service, truly creating a ‘stay from hell’.
Overall it was exactly the stay I was looking for, and Airbnb was the right option for booking something in this location where there aren’t nice chain resorts where I could spend points and where other homesharing sites lacked the same beachfront inventory at the price for a similar home.
At the same time the Airbnb experience left me frustrated in many ways.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
